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Category: Holograph

Thinking ahead at CES 2018

It may sound trite to say that a show like CES is all about the future, but this year’s show is prompting me to think about how our lives will evolve in the coming years. Some technological breakthroughs change the way we do everyday things like play music or hail a cab—while some transform the way we do everything. For technological innovation to truly shift society on a wide scale, it has to coincide with markets of scale in a way that makes life-changing tech accessible to almost everyone (think: smartphones in 2005 versus smartphones in 2018).

These technical and economic forces are coinciding once again in the areas of AI, automation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and consumer robotics. While many of our daily activities will stay the same, the ways we organize and engage with those activities are changing dramatically.

I’ll leave you with a few general observations from the show:

  • Huawei has a huge presence here. A new tagline for them that I haven’t seen before is a play on their name, “Wow Way.” I suspect we may have a Mate 10 Pro XPRT Spotlight entry in the near future.
  • The Kino-mo Hypervsn 3D Holograph display blew me away. People were crowding in to see it and couldn’t stop staring. It’s straight out of sci-fi, and its appearance is similar to Princess Leia’s hologram message in Star Wars. (By the way, it looks way better in real life than in the video.)
  • Sony is making a big push into smart homes by building systems that work cross-platform with a range of smart speakers and assistants. Between their smart home push and some of the cool home theater tech they had on display, I can see them gaining some brand power.
  • To me, the most exciting concepts at the show involved smart infrastructure, which promises enormous potential to boost the efficient distribution of water, energy, and transportation resources.
  • Surprisingly, I saw automation, smart city, and smart infrastructure displays from companies that I don’t always associate with IoT or AI, like Bosch and Panasonic. Panasonic was marketing an array of semi-autonomous vehicle cockpit prototypes, and had a section highlighting their partnership with Tesla.
  • By far, the strangest thing I’ve seen at CES has been the Psychasec booth, staffed by eerie attendants in pure white outfits who talked confidently about “downloading your cortical stack into customized bodies made from organic materials.” The Psychasec staff absolutely refused to break character, which made the whole scene even stranger. Check out the link above for the story behind Psychasec.



And, while I’m probably not supposed to admit this, my favorite part of the show so far has been the line of expensive massage chair vendors doling out free sessions…

More to follow soon,

Justin

The things we do now

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the Microsoft Store added an option to indicate holographic support, which we selected for TouchXPRT. So, it was no surprise to see Microsoft announce that next year, they will release an update to Windows 10 that enables mainstream PCs to run the Windows Holographic shell. They also announced that they‘re working with Intel to develop a reference architecture for mixed-reality-ready PCs. Mixed-reality applications, which combine the real world with a virtual reality, demand sophisticated computer vision, and applications that can learn about the world around them.

As we’ve said before, we are constantly watching how people use their devices. One of the most basic principles of the XPRT benchmarks is to test devices using the same kinds of work that people do in the real world. As people find new ways to use their devices, the workloads in the benchmarks should evolve as well. Virtual reality, computer vision, and machine learning are among the technologies we are looking at.

What sorts of things are you doing today that you weren’t a year ago? (Other than Pokémon GO – we know about that one.) Would you like to see those sorts of workloads in the XPRTs? Let us know!

Eric

Smarter shopping for Windows 10 devices

Microsoft released the Windows 10 Anniversary Update for PCs and tablets on Tuesday. (The Anniversary Update for Windows 10 Mobile is rolling out on August 9.) Justin explained a couple of weeks ago how to run HDXPRT on current builds of Windows 10, and we have verified that those instructions work for the released version of the Anniversary Update.

We’ve also made sure that TouchXPRT runs with the Anniversary Update. When we uploaded the latest TouchXPRT version to the Microsoft Store, we checked the box to say it supports holographic devices. We expect it will work, but we don’t have a HoloLens available for testing. We would love to hear from anyone who has the developer version of the HoloLens about any issues and any tips for resolving them.

If you’re considering buying a Windows 10 tablet or phone, you should be using TouchXPRT to inform your decision. TouchXPRT 2016 is a Universal Windows application, compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Like all the XPRTs, it produces a simple “bigger is better” score. You can find TouchXPRT scores online and in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight.

Of course, you can also download and run TouchXPRT yourself. It’s available in the Windows Store or from TouchXPRT.com. Knowing the TouchXPRT score for your device is a great way to set a baseline for your next purchase!

Eric

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